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Tippet acknowledges she hasn’t followed Windswept Farms Homeowners Association’s rules. The HOA requires prior approval, which she didn’t get. Her yard isn’t fenced in. Her coop is larger than the size allowed and doesn’t match her home’s exterior, which has blue-gray siding. And the coop needs to be shielded from view of neighbors and passersby.

But Tippet says her HOA is violating state law, which allows up to six chickens in a single coop. The coop her HOA wants is too small for six birds, and the other rules are unnecessarily burdensome, she says.

Homeowner associations are “not the law. They have to follow the law,� Tippet said. “They think they have way more power than they do.�

The dispute comes at a time when interest in raising chickens has grown in response to egg prices climbing due to a combination of factors, including avian flu outbreaks that have killed millions of birds.

Missouri now allows homeowners to have up to six chickens per every fifth of an acre and prohibits bans against them in property covenants, deed restrictions or other binding agreements. County and city governments can still ban chickens, but neighborhood associations and other property contract arrangements can only set “reasonable� rules, but can’t prohibit “a single coop designed to accommodate up to six� of the birds.

State Rep. Jim Murphy, who helped create the law, said he didn’t want to allow homeowners associations to ban chickens where cities or counties allow them.

It’s reasonable to require coops be clean, enclosed and otherwise refrain from being a public nuisance, Murphy said. But some property management associations are setting unreasonable rules because they “just don’t like chickens,� he said.

“It’s the homeowner’s property. Why do they need permission from a homeowners association to do something that is entirely legal?â€� Murphy, R-ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ County, said. “This is an attempt to go around the state law by making it impossible for people to pasture chickens.â€�

The Windswept Farms Homeowners Association and Omni Management Group, a local company that manages the association, did not make anyone available for an interview.

In a written statement, OMNI said the association consulted an attorney to draft the chicken coop policy to assure it met state law “and the HOA’s ability to adopt reasonable rules for the best interests of all homeowner members in Windswept Farms.�

Neighborhood associations pushed back against the law that keeps them from prohibiting chickens before it took effect. One HOA in the Lake of the Ozarks is suing to overturn it, saying it runs afoul of state and federal laws governing private contracts.

Todd Billy, an attorney who specialized in community associations law, said each association should be allowed to decide what raising chickens should look like in their community.

“It comes down to the general nature of the community and how to make these things fit,� he said. “I think it’s reasonable that associations are going to have rules for their communities that some people like and others might not.�

In Eureka, the Windswept Farms HOA is governed by a three-member board that includes one resident of the neighborhood and two employees of McBride Homes, one of four companies building homes in the subdivision, which was approved in 2017. McBride Homes declined comment.

The 147-acre subdivision, near Highway 109 and Highway W, calls for 557 single-family, detached homes, surrounding by rolling, forested hills along the Meramec River. A sign at the neighborhood’s entrance advertises new homes for sale. Many homes don’t have fences or extensive landscaping, and trees along the street are young and short.

Tippet, who moved to the neighborhood in March 2024, originally hadn’t wanted to live there because of the HOA, she said. But her boyfriend liked the area, and they both wanted their boys to attend Rockwood School District.

When the law passed allowing chickens, Tippet, who grew up in rural Pennsylvania and worked on chicken farms in her youth, was elated. She didn’t contact the HOA before getting her chickens and buying a coop, she said, because she didn’t think she needed to.

“The law said I could have them regardless of the HOA,� she said. “Their approval didn’t matter.�

Two months later, she got a letter from the association with its rules, including requiring Tippet to submit an application. In January, the HOA denied her application.

The denial cited four issues:

• There was no fence around the perimeter of the yard.
• The coop was too large.
• It wasn’t screened from view of neighbors or passersby.
• It didn’t match the exterior of their home.

Tippet said her family asked for meetings with the association’s board of directors to negotiate, but never heard a response from OMNI, which corresponded with them on the association’s behalf.

She built her current coop in March, after a storm destroyed the previous one. The new coop, made of cedar wood, is 8 feet tall and 20 total square feet. It sits right behind her house, next to an enclosure of chicken wire where the birds can be outdoors.

Tippet said she knew the HOA would object and that she didn’t ask for permission, maintaining that she didn’t need it under state law. Instead, she designed her coop to meet Eureka regulations, which don’t explicitly limit the size of a coop as long as it is at least 50 feet away from neighboring properties.

The Windswept Farms Homeowners Association, however, limits coops from being taller than 4 feet and larger than 15 square feet in total area.

Tippet argues that’s only big enough for up to four chickens to live in healthy conditions. Her boyfriend, a Marine veteran, has a disability and needs a coop tall enough to walk into. And the chicken wire enclosure makes a fence unnecessary, she said.

She refuses to downsize or give away any of her chickens.

“They’re part of the family,� she said.

In recent letters to Tippet’s family, an attorney hired by the association warned it would take legal action.

“We are obligated to enforce the community rules so that the character and value of the entire community remains high,� the association said in an April 1 letter.

Tippet said she believes the HOA is targeting her because they worry a chicken coop might make it more difficult to sell new homes there. They live near several lots for sale.

“They think people won’t want to move into a neighborhood that has chickens, so they’re trying to make sure that nobody has them,� she said.

Tippet’s neighbors, meanwhile, said they have no complaints about the chickens and were never contacted by the homeowners association about them.

“They take good care of them,� said Prince Moyo, whose backyard is right behind Tippet’s.

Bill Price, who lives within view of the coop, said he hears dogs barking in the neighborhood but rarely if ever hears the chickens.

“I think they’re neat,� he said.